The Alchemy of Ibn Bishrun

The fine and the coarse elements are as easily separated (under the influence of fire) as water and oil (are), or similar things.

The mixtures, which are the elements of alchemy, agree with one another. They are derived from one substance.

One order and one treatment unite them all. Nothing strange enters into either a (single) part or into the whole of it.978 In

this sense, the philosopher has said: ‘If you have a good knowledge of the treatment and composition of the elements, and if you do not permit anything strange to enter into them, you 979 have a good knowledge of what you want to know well and definitely, since the (alchemical) element is one (element) and contains nothing that is strange to it. He who brings something strange into it falsifies it and commits an error.’

If a cognate substance is properly dissolved for this (alchemical) element, so that it becomes similar to it in respect of fineness and subtleness, the (alchemical) element expands in it and follows it wherever it goes. As long as substances remain coarse and rough, they cannot expand or be paired, and they can dissolve only with the help of spirits.

“You - may God guide you - should understand this statement in that sense.You - may God guide you - should know that such dissolution in the animal substance is the truth, which neither perishes nor decreases. It is the thing that transforms the elements, holds them, and produces for them marvelous colors and blossoms. Not every substance dissolves in this way, 980 which is (the way of) complete dissolution, because it is contrary to life.

It dissolves only in so far as (the process of dissolution) is agreeable to it and serves to defend it against the burning action of fire, until it is no longer coarse and the elements are transformed to the degree of fineness or coarseness possible for them. When the substances have reached their limit of dissolution and refinement, they then obtain a power that holds, immerses, 981 transforms, and pervades.

An (alchemical) operation, the test of whose truthfulness does not appear at the beginning, is no good.

The cold nature dries things out and ties down their humidity, while heat causes the humidity of things to appear and ties down their dryness. I have singled out heat and cold because they are active, and humidity and dryness (because they) are passive.

The passivity of (the two opposites) toward each other creates and generates the substances. Heat, however, does so more actively than cold, because the cold cannot transport and move things, while heat is the cause of motion. When the heat that causes generation is weak, it never achieves anything.

Correspondingly, if the heat affecting a thing is excessive, and there is no cold there, it burns the thing and destroys it. For this reason, some cold is needed in (alchemical) operations, so that the power of opposites may be balanced and there may be protection against the heat of fire.

“There is nothing the philosophers have warned against more insistently than burning fires. They have commanded (alchemists) to cleanse the elements and the breaths, to remove their dirt and humidity, and to keep away their harmful (actions) and uncleanliness from (fires).

That is the sound basis of their doctrine and treatment. The (alchemical) operation begins with fire and ends with fire. Therefore, the philosophers have said, ‘Beware of burning fires.’ By that they meant that one should keep away the harmful (actions) that go with (fire). (Otherwise,) two kinds of harmful (actions) would combine against the substance and speed its destruction.

Also, anything may suffer annihilation and corruption through itself, 982 because its elements are opposed to each other and there is disharmony in it.

It thus stands in the middle between two things 983 and does not find anything to strengthen and aid it, but the harmful (actions) overpower and destroy it.

The sages have mentioned that spirits return repeatedly to bodies (substances), so that they may have greater coherence with them and greater strength to fight the fire, since they (the spirits) come into contact with (the fire) at the moment of union - I mean here elemental fire. This should be realized.

Some philosophers have thought such a stone is found in animals, plants, minerals, or in everything.

The (alchemical) operation might potentially, be performed with anything, because the elements exist in every thing.

What produces the alchemical operation both potentially and actually? For this, we turn to the statement of al-Harrani that says all dyeing consists of two kinds.

1. One may use a substance such as saffron, which is used to dye a white garment.

The saffron eventually changes in it, vanishing and being decomposed.

2. The transformation of the substance of one thing into the substance and color of something else.

Thus trees, for instance, transform the soil into themselves, and animals the plants, so that eventually the soil becomes plants, and the plants animals.

This can come about only with the help of the living spirit and the active nature (kiyan) which has the ability to generate substances and change essences.

It follows that the alchemical operation must be either in animals or in plants. Proof of this is that both animals and plants need food by their very nature, in order to subsist and to materialize.

Plants do not have the same fineness and power that animals have.

Therefore, the sages rarely turned to them. Animals are the last and final stage of the three permutations. Minerals turn into plants, and plants into animals, but animals cannot turn into anything finer than themselves. They may, however, revert back to (greater) coarseness.

Furthermore, animals are the only things in the world to which the living spirit attaches itself. Now, the spirit is the finest thing there is in the world. It attaches itself to animals only because it is similar to them. The spirit existing in plants is insignificant. It is coarse and thick.

In addition, it is submerged and hidden in plants, because it is coarse itself and because the substance of plants is coarse.

Plants, thus, cannot move, because they themselves are coarse and because their spirit is coarse. The mobile spirit is much finer than the hidden one. The former accepts food.

It can be moved, and it can breathe. The latter can only accept food. As compared with the living spirit, it occupies no better position than that of earth as compared to water. This is how plants compare with animals.

Therefore, it is much more advanced and much simpler to use animals for the alchemical) operation. The intelligent person who knows this must try the method that is easy. He must not do what he fears might be difficult.

The sages have divided living beings into ‘mothers’- the elements - and ‘young ones’ - the generated beings.

The sages thus divided the elements and the generated beings into living ones and dead ones. They assumed that anything that moves is active and living and that anything that is stationary is passive and dead. They made this division for all things, for the melt able substances and the mineral drugs.

Anything that is melt able in fire and volatile and combustible, they called ’living.’ Anything of the opposite qualities, they called ‘dead.’ The animals and plants that can be decomposed into the four elements, they called living. Those that cannot, they called dead.

Then, they searched all the living groups. Among the things that can be decomposed into four components obvious to the eye, they did not find anything suitable for alchemy. The only (suitable) thing they found was ’the stone’ which is in animals.

They studied its genus. Eventually, they came to know it. They took it and treated it. As a result, they obtained the desired qualities from it.

Similar qualities may be obtained in minerals and plants, after (various mineral or vegetable) drugs are combined, mixed, and then separated again. There are plants, such as saltwort, 987 that can be decomposed into certain of the (four) components.

Minerals contain substances, spirits, and breaths which, when they are mixed and treated, produce something that may exercise an influence. We have tried all that out.

Animals are much more advanced. Their treatment is much simpler. Thus, one must know what is the stone that exists in animals, and how it can be found.“We have made it clear that animals are the highest of generated things.

In the same sense, whatever is composed from them (animals) is finer than (plants), 988 just as plants are finer than earth. Plants are finer than earth, because they are created from its 989 pure essence and fine substance.

Therefore, they are necessarily fine and subtle. The animal stone is in the same position (among animals) as plants are in the soil. In general, there is nothing in living beings that can be decomposed into four elements except (that stone). This statement must be understood.

It can hardly remain concealed from anyone except an obviously stupid person who has no intelligence.

I have thus informed you about the quiddity and genus of the stone. Now I am going to explain to you the different kinds of treatment. Thus, we shall give you your fair share (of information), as we have taken it upon ourselves to do, if God - praised be He - wills.

Take the noble stone. Deposit it in the cucurbit and alembic. Separate its four elements, which are water, air, earth, and fire. They are substance, spirit, soul, 990 and dyeing. When you have separated the water from the earth and the air from the fire, keep each one apart in its own vessel.

Take the dregs - the sediment - at the bottom of the vessel. Wash it with hot fire, until the fire has removed its blackness, and its coarseness and toughness have disappeared. Blanch it carefully and evaporate the superfluities of the humidities concealed 991 in it.

It will thus become white water, which contains no darkness, dirt, or disharmony. Then, turn to those primary elements that are distilled from it. Cleanse them, too, of blackness and disharmony. Wash them repeatedly and sublimate them, until they become fine, subtle, and pure. When you have done this, God has given you success.

“Then, start with the composition around which the operation centers. This is as follows. Composition comes about only through pairing (marriage) and putrefaction. Pairing (marriage) is the mixture of the fine with the coarse.

Putrefaction is purgation 992 and pulverization undertaken so that the various parts may mix, as water does, with each other and form one thing containing no confusion 993 or deficiency in itself. In this condition, the coarse (components) have the strength to hold the fine ones back; the spirit has the strength to oppose the fire and can tolerate it; and the soul has the strength to immerse itself and slip into the substances.

This situation exists only after composition. When the soluble substance is paired with the spirit, it mingles with it in all its parts, and the parts interpenetrate, because they are similar to each, other. Thus, (the resulting mixture) becomes one thing.

The fact that (the spirit) is mixed (with the body) makes it necessary for the spirit to be affected by well-being, corruption, duration [?], 994 and persistence, like the body. Likewise, when the soul mixes with (substance and spirit) and penetrates them through the services of the (alchemical) treatment, all the parts of the (soul) 995 mingle with all the parts of the two other (things), that is, spirit and substance. Thus, the (soul) and the two become one thing that contains no disagreement and is in the position of the universal particular whose elements are intact and whose parts are in harmony with each other.

When this compound meets the soluble substance, and fire is constantly applied to it, and the humidity in it is brought to the surface, it melts in the soluble substance. Humidity implies combustion and an attachment of the fire to itself.

But when the fire wants to attach itself to it, its admixture of water prevents it from union with the soul, for fire does not unite with oil, until it is pure. Likewise, waterimplies aversion to fire. Thus, when fire is constantly applied to it and wants to evaporate it, the dry substance which is mixed with (the water) keeps it back inside and prevents it from evaporation.

Thus, the substance is the cause of holding the water; the water is the cause of the duration of the oil; the oil is the cause of the persistence of the dyeing; and the dyeing is the cause of the appearance of color and the indication of oiliness in dark things that have no light and no life.

This is the right substance. The (alchemical) operation comes about in this way.

“The ’egg 996 about which you have inquired (is the thing) the sages call ’egg.’ It is what they have in mind (when they speak about the ’egg’), and not the egg of the chicken. It should be known that the sages did not choose an inappropriate name by calling it ’egg.’

They called it ’egg,’ because it can be compared to an egg. I asked Maslamah about it one day when I was alone with him. I said to him, ‘O excellent sage, tell me, why did the sages call the animal compound “egg”? Was that something arbitrary on their part, or was there some reason that caused them to do so?’

Why did they compare it with an egg and calling it “egg”?

He said, ‘The egg is similar to and related to the compound.’’

When he saw that I was deep in thought and my soul immersed in it, he grasped my arm, nudged me slightly, and said to me, ‘O Abu Bakr, it is because of the relationship that exists between the two with regard to the quantity of colors at the time of the mixture and composition of the elements.’ When he said that, the darkness (that had enveloped my mind) left me. A light lit up my heart and gave my intellect the power to understand it.